Rising – Jackson, Our flags are wafting in hope and grief
Gabriel Jackson - Our flags are wafting in hope and grief
Sunrise, Thursday April 2
Our flags are wafting in hope and grief,
through turmoil we are silent and stern.
So begins Gabriel Jackson's Our flags are wafting in hope and grief. We frequently sing Gabriel's music and wallow in his textures, on display at the outset of this humanist anthem, as the altos sing an unsynchronized, wistful figure that sounds like the wind, as if enabling the other voices to "waft" around them. We love to sing this piece – and have at Christmas, the Philly Fringe Festival, the Park Avenue Armory – because it has an amazing moment of "rising" in it. It begins about 2/3 of the way through the piece, after all the wafting. There is a pause and then the music completely resets, with the lower voices repeating the two chords on the word "voicing" – a kind of mantra under the sopranos sing:
Whatever we had, whatever we lost,
whether valued or taken for granted,
But, as the sopranos reach higher, the lower voices respond, gradually ascending, with ever-increasing tension toward the 'land' – a moment of extraordinary determination and conviction, with all voices aligned:
a voicing of freedom at whatever cost
cannot now be recanted.
The power of community. In words and in music. Born out of turmoil.
Be well. Be awake.
The timidest heart that never spoke out
now breaks into song, impatient.
- The Whole Team @ The Crossing
Our flags are wafting in hope and grief
music by Gabriel Jackson
words by Doris Kareva
translation from Estonian by Miriam McIlfatrick-Ksenofontov
recorded at Tbe Crossing @ Christmas
December 17, 2017 at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
audio by Paul Vazquez of Digital Mission Audio Services
commissioned by the Linfield College Department of Music and the Lacroute Arts Series at Linfield College and premiered 4 May 2014
* * *
Our flags are wafting in hope and grief,
through turmoil we are silent and stern.
A moment has come - a moment so brief,
perhaps a point of no return.
We live with regret, we live with doubt,
our roots are tangled and ancient.
The timidest heart that never spoke out
now breaks into song, impatient.
Whatever we had, whatever we lost,
whether valued or taken for granted,
a voicing of freedom at whatever cost
cannot now be recanted.